November was an exceptionally busy month for the Chess Club. Besides the simultaneous display, three matches took place in the Oxford and District Chess League (ODCL), two in the prestigious National Schools' Championship, and the internal knockout tournaments also neared their conclusion.
In the ODCL, match points have been hard to come by but there have been some fine individual performances. Edward O'Brien has won twice on Board 1, Alex Lee has drawn twice on Board 2 and Omri Faraggi has achieved a win and a draw playing on the middle boards. All these results have been achieved playing against tough adult opposition.
In the National Schools' Championship, Abingdon's A Team played away against MCS in the first round. Abingdon won two, drew three and lost only one of the six games, and so bettered MCS 3.5 - 2.5. Sadly, because of the age-handicap system, this score was not quite enough to see the team through to the next round. A talented but inexperienced B Team lost to Bedford Modern 1 - 5. The A Team was Edward O'Brien, Alex Lee, Omri Faraggi, Thomas Salt, Edward Reynolds and Joseph Truran. The B Team was Angus Chan, Michael Jiang, Leon Wu, Rafi'i al-Akiti, Ray Ren and Daniel Lawson.
The finalists in the individual knockout tournaments are Alex Lee and Edward O'Brien (Sixth Form), Edward Reynolds and Leon Wu (Middle School) and Joseph Truran and either Ray Ren or Daniel Lawson (Lower School).
AJPE